Plus, the ability to use force of will and the power of the dark side to carry on despite fatal injury is not without precedent...

Exactly, then there was also that business with Exar Kun. His entire body was crushed yet then healed with the Dark Side. There's Cade Skywalker's Dark Transfer ability, and the ultimate work of Midichlorian Manipulation via Darth Plagueis, who himself believed that the Force being infinite allowed any user to utilize any Force ability with the right amount of knowledge, power, and skill. And I again have to completely agree. Heck, even Vader was somewhat successful at healing himself for short periods as seen in Shadows of the Empire. He simply wasn't able to do it on a permanent basis.

Vader's mind was simply too damaged to grasp his true power as far as i'm concerned. He never fully accepted himself for what he was, and what he'd done, and therefore wasn't able to fully accept the Dark Side as Sidious and Bane, and Kun did.

Vader's mind was simply too damaged to grasp his true power as far as i'm concerned. He never fully accepted himself for what he was, and what he'd done, and therefore wasn't able to fully accept the Dark Side as Sidious and Bane, and Kun did.

Or, as Palpatine puts it in Dark Empire:

"The great Darth Vader was a sick man in an iron mask! Yes, that mask inspired terror throughout the galaxy ... but the feeble heart within was forever possessed by the impotent side of the Force! You can be far stronger than he was! Dark Jedi! Are you going to let your weak sister get the better of you? Get up! I can give you the power to break her! You will kill your sister if I ask it!"

Of course, I find the whole "Cybernetics make you weaker" thing kind of stupid anyway.

Were I running the EU, Vader would have lost nothing in terms of potential or strength.

It's even implied by the movies where Vader says that he's more powerful than before.

Palpatine himself doesn't believe in it, and always thought it was only Vader's inability to let go of his past that kept him from achieving his full potential. Personally, I agree with Palpatine.

I think it would have been cool if Vader had reached his full potential and became far more powerful than Palpatine while in the suit, but with a twist, since he was dependent on the suit, he'd still be easily incapacitated by Palpatine's force lightning. This would have let Palpatine have a great apprentice but he'd still be able to control his apprentice because Vader wouldn't be able to protect himself from Palpatine's most powerful attack.

I know this goes against everything in the movies and in the EU, but I think this would've been a cool idea.

In fact, they could've had a storyline in which Vader recognizes that his powers were surpassing Palpatine's and he makes an attempt at killing Palpatine but he fails because Palpatine is able to fry his life support system so easily and Vader can't do anything to prevent this. Vader finds this failure so devastating and it makes him feel so impotent that the psychological consequences of not being able to take out Palpatine then undermine his confidence and his ambitions. Consequently, Vader is never able to become so powerful again merely for psychological reasons. I think this would've helped Vader into a more pathetic figure too. It's only a self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps Vader from reaching the full potential that he was actually able to reach at one point. (It'd also be cool to see a full power Vader!)

This also reminds me of a question I posed in Saga. I'll have to link later, but one of the topics I explored was that Darth Vader spent 20 years learning from Sidious to be able to do...the exact same stuff he could do when he first became Vader.

Nah. Masters don't want apprentices where they have an automatic "I Win button" in a faceoff.

Yeah, but the "real" Vader not the one I was describing sort of does have a "I Win button." Palpatine only has to hit him with one lightning strike. Of course, maybe that's why Palpatine wants to replace him

I also think that suited Vader is more powerful than Anakin. I don't think he has the same potential, but I think Anakin was far, far from reaching his potential. In my view, Anakin was so far from his potential that a topped out suited Vader exceeds Anakin. For what it's worth, GL says that a topped out Vader was 80% the power of Palpatine, though he seems much further behind than that, but maybe GL meant that Vader's potential tops out at 80% of Palpatine's.

BTW, don't mean to bug you if you're busy, but do you mind asking my above questions about the comic you posted?

Vader was truly never incapacitated by the suit. There are at least 4 ways in which he could had recovered himself:

- Transfer Essence to a Clone Body
- Use force healing to heal himself, something that was working but couldn't mantain the hatred enough to go through it.
- Font of Power and or Pool of Knowledgement
- Mind Walking (and going to the Pools)
- Kaiburr Crystal (Vader actually HAD THIS, he only needed to return to the temple and use it)
- Oneness with The Force (it made Jacen Solo's body into pure light, I am pretty sure this would had healed Vader 100%)

So there are MANY methods Vader could had used to heal himself, some of them requiring to relinquish the Dark Side, others not and some he didn't knew but there is no way all of them were unknown to him, at least one he had to know and he knew, he kept the Kaiburr Crystal and would only need to latter return to the temple to heal himself with it. He was also experimenting with Force Healing naturally.

So yes, in a way it seemed it was some kind of self-imposed restrain or more like he concidered to not have any reason to live any longer or struggle he was like "I lost Padme, I betrayed the Jedi, I lost my brother and my kids, so why do I bother?"

Perhaps this is the true reason Palpatine was so disappointed at him to the point of seeking another apprentice, perhaps he knew Vader could overcome the suit but he didn't had the will to do it. I wonder if latter Sidious regretted not keeping Padme alive in some way, because with her as leverage Vader would be in top shape in no time.